How to Convert Baritone Notes to Trumpet
The trumpet and the baritone horn, often referred to as the baritone, play in the key of B flat. If you play a basic scale on these instruments without adding any accidentals, you play a B flat scale. However, in sheet music, the key without any accidentals is C major. To make life easier, B flat instrumentalists learn transposed names for the fingerings. The note they think of as a C sounds like a B flat on a piano. Music for the baritone horn in treble clef is transposed like this. Baritone music in bass clef is not.
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Instructions
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Identify the clef of your music. If it is in treble clef, it is already pitched for a B flat instrument, and you can play it on the trumpet without changing anything. If it is in bass clef, you need to transpose.
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Rewrite each note of the music a major ninth higher than the original. To make this simpler, raise it a major second and then rewrite it in treble clef. For example, if the bass clef note is B flat, write a treble-clef C.
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Look at the original key signature. Raise the key a whole step, and write the new key signature on the trumpet music. If the original key signature had two flats, making it the key of B flat, write no flats or sharps in the new music, putting it into the key of C.
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Tips & Warnings
With practice, you can learn to transpose a major second without writing out the part. This allows you to pick up baritone music and sight-read it on the trumpet.
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